What is an IgY and what is its relationship to IgG?
Chicken IgY is the major circulating antibody found in chickens and is the avian counterpart to mammalian IgG’s. IgY’s are equivalent to IgG’s in most experimental applications, including Western Blotting, ELISAs, immunohistochemistry, immunocytochemistry, and function blocking experiments. IgY’s have the same general structure as a mammalian IgG, with 2 heavy (“nu” chains, ~67-70 kDa) and 2 light chains (22-30 kDa) (see figure).
